Career CFO vents her frustration over business, human capital, economics, social environment, culture, politics, and everything else; but always with a monetary twist

May 2014 posts

May 28, 2014

As my readers know, years ago I've made a career choice of avoiding large corporations and their tall organizational structures. I prefer small and mid-size companies allowing opportunities of direct interactions with business owners - the very people responsible for recognizing one's efforts and allotting rewards. It's not for sissies, of course, because in this environment you cannot hide your incompetence or laziness in a mass of indistinguishable drones - you and your work are on the spot and in full view all the time.

Even for a highly skilled professional with a strong work ethic it's not easy to be constantly exposed to this very special breed of people - the entrepreneurial bosses, who, God bless them, unwittingly provide me with endless writing material. I guess it will be several years into my retirement (assuming I will live that long) before the urges to highlight this or that aspect of their psychology and behavior will ceise.

It's uncanny how many common characteristics are shared by private business owners. For example, all of them operate under the same delusion that employees care (or should care) about their companies just as much and exactly in the same way as they themselves do. It's especially amazing to me because most of them are pretty levelheaded and highly functional people, yet they insist on this deranged assumption that doesn't fit into any rational frame of thought.

For a business owner his company is his life's endeavor, his singular purpose, his channel of expression and fulfillment, his source of pride and wealth, his outlet of personal freedom. The owner/CEO's opinion overrides everybody else's; he is the only one with a full authority to direct the company's development in any direction (to a success or to a downfall); ultimately he holds all employment strings in his hands; he can say or do whatever he wants (within the limits of the law, of course); nobody watches his time, assesses his performance, addresses his shortcomings.

On the other hand, for an employee, no matter how dedicated, loyal, hard-working, conscientious, and highly positioned, a job is just a job - a line on a resume. It cannot possibly be anything else, because there is no such a thing as a job security anymore, no matter where you work. If the current employment ends, there most likely will be another one after. Nowadays, probably shifting down, but maybe shifting up - who knows? There must be something, or there will be oblivion. For many of us, a job is just a source of sustenance, not the means of self-satisfaction. And when it comes to personal freedom... I already wrote about it four years ago (Bill of Rights in Small-Business Environment ).

Clearly owners and their employees are conditioned to look at the business from different platforms. It is preposterous to assume equal attitudes from unequal parties. Yet, the faulty presumption persists and is manifested by various business owners quite frequently. I'm sure many of you have experienced it first-hand.

On the rare occasions, when opportunities to be frank present themselves, I try to explain to CEOs that their employees have their own individual life agendas: what's good for you, your business, and your pocket, Mr. Boss, is not necessarily all that important to them. Sometimes I even draw Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: you see, I say, you cannot expect them to be proud of working in your wonderful growing company if they cannot make ends meet and feel overworked.

Agh, it's no use! Just the other week I was discussing (via email) with one of my clients, whose company made the 2013 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in the nation, whether I should enter them into consideration this year as well. It's my assessment that the negative outcome (everyone was complaining about the endless solicitation calls from various service companies) outweighed the pleasurable, yet hard to measure, positive impact of the resulted publicity. He had no rebuttal to that particular argument. Instead, he replied to me with the following:

"The ranking is something about which we can all be proud, and which thereby directly affects the morale of our staff, who both see results of their hard work translated into an accolade and have the pleasure of working for a company that has been honored. I know I bathed in the warm glow of the company's recognition."

Of course he did! It's his company. He is rightfully entitled to tell about it every single person he meets. But can you believe the gall? They "have the pleasure..."! Seriously? Even the ones with $40K salaries and one-week-a-year vacations? Uh-uh, Mr. Boss, the pleasure is all yours.

May 26, 2014

"Each language is a special tool, with a particular capability. It is more than a means of communication, it is a system of thought... Think of a language as the contour of a watershed, stopping flow in certain directions, channeling it into others. Language controls the mechanism of your mind. When people speak different languages, their minds work differently and they act differently... The question arises: does the language provoke or merely reflect... Which came first: the language or the conduct?"

Jack Vance, The Languages of Pao, 1958

The Frustrated CFO's comment: Maybe not the most mind-blowing science-fiction opus of mid-20s century, this short novel by the 14th Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America is, nevertheless, full of fascinating concepts. Those who ever wondered about the unmistakable passion of Italian, so perfect for melodramatic singing and kitchen fighting; or thought that French sounds too snooty even when spoken by hard-core street thugs, yet so sexy when whispered in one's ear; or heard dogs barking and whips lashing around people speaking German - will find the idea of controlling people through languages especially engaging.

May 20, 2014

"Any collocation of persons, no matter how numerous, how scant, how even their homogeneity, how firmly they profess common doctrine, will presently reveal themselves to consist of smaller groups espousing variant versions of the common creed; and these sub-groups will manifest sub-sub-groups, and so to the final limit of the single individual, and even in this single person conflicting tendencies will express themselves."

Attributed to the imaginary author Adam Ostwald of a hypothetical tractatus "Human Society"

May 16, 2014

For many years Cipriani restaurant at 55 Wall St. (aka Cipriani Club 55) has been a staple location for Financial District's lunchers with company-paid expense accounts: classy, convenient, prestigious, comfortable, and moderately tasty (not enough to distract you from a business conversation, yet sufficiently to leave you and your guests satisfied). And, of course, the drinkers can tease themselves here with famous Bellinis, that pre-war invention of Giuseppe Cipriani - a mix of Prosecco (the Italian answer to Champagne) and peach puree; the only coral-pink drink in a flute I've ever seen straight men drink.

Being tied up in Midtown offices for years and always insistent on people coming to my turf, I have not been at this Cipriani location for a while. Now, firmly based on Broad St., I am basically around the corner from the place. So, it was only natural that an institutional investor picked it for a lunch meeting with me.

I arrived first and had a chance to observe the scenery for several minutes without any distractions. So, this is what it's like here now? For a hot second I thought I was in a wrong restaurant. I remember the place being abuzz, full of men and a few women in Italian suits, their conversations merging into one low-volume background sound. Now, at 1 pm (the busiest of the lunch-time hours) the restaurant's occupancy is about 40%, which is not enough to blend the voices - you can clearly make out dialogues at different tables.

The most remarkable change, though, is in the contingent of patrons. While all suits in attendance were of the familiar ilk (well, maybe not all of Italian make anymore - my observation is that Brooks Brothers' off-the-rack outfits, now predominately made in China, are gaining more and more ground here), there were several tables occupied by new fixtures.

There were two (!) Russian tables. The largest round table in the middle of the restaurant was occupied by a mixed-gender group of New Russians: Rolexes, Cartier tchotchkes, Zegna (men) and Chanel (women) suits, skirts too tight and too short, hills too high, voices too loud, full bottles of drinks on the table. Several tables away from them, in a much quieter corner, were two Russian models: 6-feet tall with legs growing out of their armpits, long dirty-blond hair, indistinguishable faces with unnoticeable makeup, Roberto Cavalli jeans and blouses, marinated salmon and water on the table. Well, nowadays, these people are everywhere.

It was really another couple that surprised me: A young (at least by the contemporary standards - about 38) stay-at-home Dad with his 4-year-old daughter on his lap. Both of them were wearing high quality, expensive, but tastefully understated and casual clothes. Except that the girl's outfit and hair were somewhat disheveled, apparently from unyielding resistance to Dad's feeding attempts (hence the lap position - to prevent spontaneous running).

The truth is, though, I shouldn't have been surprised. This pair was here probably for the same reason the Russian models were: most likely they live nearby, in one of many Financial District's ex-office buildings, now converted by their owners into condos to increase occupancy and profits. They belong to the previously unimaginable in this area dog-walking crowd I try to get through every evening on my way home from the office.

Don't get me wrong, this is not about Cipriani's shrinking revenues. Who the fuck cares? I don't. These people have hotels and restaurants all over the world; they've soldered through tax evasion suits and who knows what else. Both Club 55 and Cipriani Grand Central are still prime choices for many non-profit, political, and commercial organizations hosting fundraisers and galas. And I hear that the wedding business is going strong.

But I view all these shifts and changes, largely unnoticed by others, as evidence supporting my strong opinion that we live in a new economic stage - the one that doesn't fit into Nobel-prize-winning formulas; the one that leads rational thinkers to pessimistic predictions of the future that's coming both to Main Street and Wall Street. Of course, we can pacify ourselves by saying that Cipriani is too outdated and stuffy; that the younger high-rollers prefer hipper places at nearby Peck Slip and other tiny waterfront streets. But surely that alone wouldn't account for the dramatically reduced attendance in this brand-name establishment.

A sober eye cannot help but track the obvious trend: the empty tables; the unoccupied offices; the converted buildings; the diminishing number of Italian suits on display. It illustrates only too well a poignant number recently featured in New York Magainzine's Approval Matrix: 46% of New Yorkers are barely making more than the poverty threshold. And it is pretty clear to me that, contrary to the popular opinion, 53.99% of the City's population don't make quite as much as they used to either. The remaining 0.01% (not 1%, you fools!) are in a position to never get affected by any economic changes. They can have Bellinis (and everything else) any time they want.

May 08, 2014

There are smart people out there who always place their personal interests ahead of everything else. I wish I could be like that, but I'm not. In my life, other people and things end up claiming higher priorities than Me. I'm one of those schmucks who get overwhelmed by the sense of Responsibility, as in guilt (familial) and duty (professional), and push their private matters aside. I know, I know - at the end of the day by abating those feelings I essentially attend to my personal needs anyway, but that's a psycho-philosophical issue we can contemplate. In real time it feels as if I do everything for others and neglect myself.

That's why it takes me six months to get my ass to a dentist. And that's why I let a bunch of out-of-pocket medical expenses to accumulate before I'm pushed to the wall by the deadline to file for reimbursement from the Flexible Spending Account (FSA, aka use-it-or-loose-it pre-tax medical expense program). It's not just me either - two of my employees completely missed the cut-off dates for filing their claims, thus losing the portion of the wages they have been contributing to the FSA. Maybe my attitude robbed off on them. And that's too bad, because no job deserves such loyalty unless you work for yourself or someone dear to you.

But, as Bill Cosby would say after a 30-minute introduction, this is not what I was going to talk about. This should explain, however, why when I was filing my FSA claims online a couple of weeks ago I had to upload quite a few receipts (required as supporting evidence) covering pharmaceutical, medical, and dental co-payments.

Here is what happened. I entered all claims, uploaded scanned receipts, pressed the "Submit" button... and the system hanged. You know, one of those dead freezes when nothing moves no matter what you do. Okay! Not a big deal for someone who's been dealing with computers and the Internet, like, forever. Close the browser, open the browser, go back on the website, log in, retrieve the claims (thankfully saved), upload... Same shit!

Well, as you can imagine, entering all information item by item, scanning individual receipts, etc. took a "minute" already, so I wanted to resolve this bullshit ASAP. I located the tech support number and dialed it, cursing under my breath the Flex provider for not offering a dedicated debit card option instead of this cumbersome claim filing.

In the receiver a Steve answers. Like I said, I'm an experienced Internet user, so I go straight to the core issue, "Is there a limit on the number of documents a user can attach to a claim? Or maybe on the total size of attachments?" Tech support is not customer service and it's reasonable to expect that they will catch on your short-cut approach. Uh-uh! Not Steve! He asks, "What is the problem?" and I'm forced to explain the whole thing anyway.

He listens and says, "I've never heard about a size limit." (Note to all, only 1 out of 10 service people fully understands the system he supports.) "But I know what the problem is - you are having an Unknown 500."

Wait a minute, wait a minute: he knows that I'm having an unknown something? That sounds strange, doesn't it? But I keep my cool - I understand it's a system error: "What kind of error is it?" In return he asks (you cannot get a straight answer out of this guy no matter what!), "Do any of the files you are uploading have a '+' or a '-' in their names?" "No," I say, "they don't. I know that that's not allowed. In fact, one of the scans originally had dashes in the name, but I deliberately renamed it before the uploading." That was foolish of me to volunteer all that information. Because now he goes, "That doesn't matter, the system still knows that the dash was there."

Really, dude? I ask, "Are you telling me that this FSA processing site is capable of recognizing in MY computer that a file USED TO have dashes in its name?" He confirms, "Yes, that's correct." "Not the size of all the attachments, but the expunged name? Are you sure?" He confirms again. Okay, humor me: "So, how can I remedy this?" "Log out, shut down your computer, reboot, and then you should be able to upload your receipts," he advises.

Bill Cosby is definitely on my mind today, because it was him who said "as ridiculous as some things may sound, there come desperate times when you are ready to try anything." My rational mind did not believe for a single second that it would work, but it was a proposition of a quick fix and time is of the essence. So, after I'd hung up, I followed his suggestion.

Of course, it didn't work! What did you think? The guy pulled that tech recommendation out of his ass! Didn't even offer to stay on the line with me to see if it was going to work! Who does that? I'll tell you who: unqualified, unprofessional, poorly trained, half-asleep, semi-retarded bitches that pervade our lives.

The right thing to do at this point would be to delete the original claims and file them in two batches instead of one. Then call the tech support, find a supervisor (I noted Steve's full name)... But my time is more important, so instead I downloaded the entered info into a claim form, put it together with the receipts, and did what we used to do "back in the day": faxed everything over. You don't get a time-stamped system receipt that way, but it worked - I've got reimbursed in three days.

Meanwhile, the stupidity went unpunished. Oh, well, we let go of things like that on daily basis. What appalls me the most, though, is the audacity of this people! You are called "Support," for crying out loud! Someone in need calls you, you feed them some bullshit, hang up, and go on with your life? And you get paid for it? How do these people leave with themselves? How do they go to sleep at night? I have no clue. I know I never worked like that. I simply couldn't. But I bet it's much easier to be Steve. I'm sure he never pushes his personal interests aside.

May 05, 2014

"Frankly, I left our meeting here on Monday with the conviction that you attended under duress but would otherwise rather have been doing pretty much anything else. PNC is a month behind every other bank, and we used up considerable goodwill with these entities to secure you and Alberto a seat at the table. No other bank has been treated so deferentially, which PNC earned by being our lender in the past three years. However, watching you play with your phone in your lap during our meeting and appearing otherwise bored suggested to me that there was a huge disconnect between what we have been attempting to do for PNC and how it is being perceived."

May 01, 2014

Yesterday was the deadline for reporting first quarter fiscal results: I filed financial statements and supplements with lenders and such; various US government agencies released their data to the public. Everyone was on time. The difference is that I take my job seriously and can substantiate every single digit I report, while the national economists have nothing better to do than look at the numbers in front of them in total bewilderment and spit out funny bullshit.

The Wall Street Journal's online edition titled its summary of quarterly results U.S. Economy Starts Year With a Whimper - a great title for a parody sketch, but no, it's a "serious" article with a grave first sentence:

"U.S. growth nearly stalled in the first three months of the year, fresh evidence that the economic expansion that began almost five years ago remains the weakest in modern history."

I don't read WSJ anymore but the article was forwarded to me, and it makes me wonder whether the person who sent it did so specifically to elicit my indignant bitterness! Well, she failed: I cannot get angry about this fucking shit anymore. I react with questions: What growth?! What expansion?!! Started when?!!!

I've said it before and I will probably need to say it many times again: THERE IS NO RECOVERY!!! This weak whatever we are witnessing is THE NEW REALITY!!! How I wish for these people to wake up and throw their outdated economic concepts, models, and notions out of their high-floor windows! And, to tell you the truth, I don't really trust the numbers anymore either. My naked eye tells me they are falsified: They say GDP (I CANNOT BELIEVE THEY ARE STILL USING THAT METRIC!) grew 0.1% in the first quarter? I say it probably contracted by 5% or more.

But that's not the funniest part. According to economists quoted in the article, "harsh weather likely slowed first-quarter business investment." Really? Not the lack of the world-wide market demand for US products, but the weather? Let me tell you, the coldest city in the world is Yakutsk, Russia. Only Antarctica registers colder temperatures. You know what it's famous for? Diamond mining - it's responsible for 1/5 of the world's production, freezing weather or not.

Furthermore, cold weather "could have even blocked exports—which notched their sharpest decline since the recovery began—from reaching ports." Hmm, let me see. First-hand info: My import/export client had 62 shipments coming to and going from US ports (Bayonne, Savannah, Houston) in the first quarter. None (!) of them experienced any delays.

And are you confused? By definition, exports leave our cold American ports, not reach them. Obviously these business commentators don't know (who hired them?) that boats with exports go the other way - to foreign lands. FYI, according to Global Analysis of National Climatic Data Center, the combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces in January was the WARMEST since 2007 and February tied with 2001 for the 21st highest record ever. So, nothing could've blocked our export shipments from reaching their overseas destinations.

But, of course, the thing that stupefies these people the most is the consumer spending. Bitches cannot force themselves to believe that people have no money to buy shit. So, they again blame the weather for the smallest gain in consumer spending on goods since 2011. Yet, the poor frozen bastards had no choice but to spend more on services, including energy to heat homes and health care. Aha, the moment of truth:

"If not for the increased spending on health care and utilities, the economy would have contracted in the first quarter."

Dudes! Make up your melons! Was the "frigid weather" bad or good for your numbers? Or did it actually have very little impact on our new-world economy?